A Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) is a radio access network (RAN) that provides mobile telecommunications services. The PLMN is typically a multiple-access system capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Multiple PLMNs may be operated by different operators in the same geographic area. These PLMNs may use different radio access technologies (RATs) and communication standards, such as code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), etc.
Due to the large variety of PLMNs with often overlapping coverage areas, popularity of multimode mobile devices capable of supporting multiple RATs has grown significantly. These multimode mobile devices may have one or more radios for communication with multiple RATs. During operation, a multimode mobile device typically searches for available PLMNs and registers with one of them. The mobile device may then periodically search for a better PLMN, which may use the same or different RAT as the serving PLMN. If a better PLMN is found the mobile device may handover to the new PLMN. However, performing a PLMN search is resource intensive process that may negatively impact other wireless operations of the mobile device.